And although i thought the singles were hard, albums are even harder, so you are going to have to bear with me and read through numbers 50 to 26 first (and a couple caveats: no soundtracks/no greatest hits---although i don't think either would have made my lists, and i tried to avoid putting anything on the list that came out before i was really into albums (which excludes van, the kinks, and the beatles etc, who would have maybe made the list otherwise), and basically tried to keep it to music i found for myself (otherwise miracle legion would have been on this list as well:

1. Midnight Oil-Diesel and Dust (probably always #1)
2. Radiohead-The Bends
3. The National-Alligator (I came in a little before this (Wasps Nest) so naturally this is the one. If I'd come in at Boxer or High Violet, they'd have been my favs. All three are just so close for me)
4. Smiths-The Queen is Dead (between junior and senior year---summer of 86---- I had a crappy job working for Daig out in Minnetonka—now part of st. jude---but there was a cool (handsome too) janitor who’d always play music and he had the best taste. He turned me onto REM and The Smiths that summer.)
5. REM-Lifes Rich Pageant (I love a lot of their other albums, but this is the one that still gives me goosebumps)
6. Wilco-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (I am an American aquarium drinker)
7. Magnetic Field-69 Love Songs (but you used to love me that way)
8. My Morning Jacket- It Still Moves (no idea how I stumbled across this album, but it immediately stuck and spun me backwards through their discography. And I’ve loved how they’ve progressed….easily could have been Z here as well)
9. John Grant-Pale Green Ghosts (maybe it won’t stand the test of time, but there has been no other album in the last 10-15 years that I have listened to front to back so compulsively than this one)
10. Sinead O’Connor-I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (give a listen to the second half of this album and tell me it doesn’t still chill)
11. Marshall Crenshaw-s/t
12. Cure-Disintegration
13. Blue Nile-Hats
14. Eno/Cale-Wrong Way Up
15. Woodentops-Giant
16. Go-Betweens-16 Lovers Lane/ Grant-Watershed (cheating, but I totally can’t pull these two apart)
17. My Bloody Valentine-Loveless (the first 2 or 3 times I heard this album I got a terrible headache. I’m not sure why I kept coming back to it, but I sure am glad I did)
18. XTC-Skylarking
19. Kate Bush-Hounds of Love
20. Grizzly Bear-Vekatimist
21. Rickie Lee Jones-s/t (the most as you’ll ever know…)
22. Waterboys-Fisherman’s Blues
23. 10,000 Maniacs-In My Tribe
24. Prefab Sprout-Atlantis: The Comeback
25. Bon Iver-s/t